A few days holiday to use and the hunt was on for a cheap flight to a not too far distant city that I had yet to explore. The Internet came up with a £50 flight to Copenhagen, so I hit the buttons on the PC and the next morning that nice little ticket came through the letterbox.

Despite being a cheapie, the Maersk flight departed Gatwick on time and actually landed early. After collecting my bag, it was quite a walk from the gate to the baggage area. I bought a train ticket to Copenhagen Central Station, 25 Kroner, yep the Danes still use proper money, not silly Euro Roubles! The efficient train takes around 15 minutes to the city.

Next to find my hotel, the first thing to say about accommodation in Copenhagen is it ain’t cheap. My hotel The Cabinn was located a 10 minute walk south of the station and cost around £50 night including a good quality buffet breakfast. The rooms were small, but excellently designed, though the beds are a bit narrow, I did role out one night!

Well off to explore, first stop obviously the Tourist office. They are extremely helpful, lots of information and maps. The walking tours which leave from the Tourist Information at 10 am each day in the summer are excellent. They cost 75 Kroner and take around 2 and a half hours. They are in English explaining the city via its most famous son Hans Christian Anderson. One tip is that you are better off doing the tour on a week day as you can get into courtyards and see parts of buildings not open at the weekend. You also learn gems such as why the knee of the statue of Hans Christian Anderson is so shiny, its because tour buses full of oriental visitors pull up, and they sit on his knee to have their photo taken!

Nyhaven is what you see in all the postcards, a lovely area full of sailing boats and little waterside cafes.

Another tour worth doing is the 50 minute boat trip that leaves from Nyhaven (50 Kroner), you get a close up view of the new Opera house and you get to see the Little Mermaid statue from a different angle, you also get a riverside view of the new “Black Diamond”, this love it or hate it building is the National Library. The boat then heads into the canals of the Christianhavns area. Christiania as the area is known is home to an alternative community, which did have a reputation for drugs, but has cleaned up its act to some degree, though you can still walk down Pusher Street.

For a great view over the city it is hard to beat the climb up the tower of the Trinity Church (20 Kroner), some great views, but the protective fencing at the top does get in the way of photos.

If you want to explore further afield as I did you cant beat making the train trip to Helsingor up the coast to see Elsinor castle, famous in Shakespear’s Hamlet, it is expensive to enter, but the views around it are great. It was during a wander here that the lovely sunshine disappeared and a deluge of rain began, so I headed into Helsingor city and visited the town's museum, which is quite interesting, though there is little in English.

Another trip I made was west to Roskilde, this town is home to a spectacular cathedral, but of far more interest to me was the Viking Ship Museum (75 Kroner), there are Viking ships, well bits of them in the museum and out on the water are new ones built in the old way. You can walk around and see the ships being crafted, there are areas where children and the young at heart can try their hand at crafts from the Viking era.

Back in Copenhagen if you want to chill out after all that sightseeing The Rose Garden in Copenhagen’s second biggest park, Valby Parken is the place. There are quite a few themed gardens to wander round, number 3 has a maze and another has a Japanese theme.

Copenhagen is perfect for a long weekend and if any of you Globies are into Geocaching, there are around 20 to do in the cities environs.

The Beetle had told me Copenhagen was a bit boring when she had visited!

This is a picture of me in the Rose garden, Valby Park Copenhagen. Beetle: where are the roses, Kev?

Mike from the US wrote in to the Beetle to say that our e-newsletter is always welcome and interesting, but that our recent “Country Statistics – Crime: Assaults Top 10 Countries per capita” was a little misleading. It puts the US on top with over 2 million crimes per capita. He says that although we are a relatively dangerous destination, we aren't quite that bad. He took a look at the source website which shows that the table gives the per country totals and would therefore be biased against populous countries. Mike goes on to say that the per capita ranking is more informative, so here is Mike’s link to this. . Quite right, Mike, apologies, we don’t want to deliberately put the US in a misleading light, so here is a better representation.

Thanks Mike – from the Beetle. We love hearing from our readers, about any comments, complementary or a slap on the wrist, please let us know!

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